Facebook’s new explore feed – what, how & why

20th October 2017

Although many have not yet heard of or noticed it, the Facebook Explore feed or ‘second feed’ has actually been in testing for over a year. It’s definitely good news from an agency perspective! If you haven’t yet noticed the little rocket icon, read on to find out what it does.

What is the Explore feed?

Facebook’s Explore feed is a customised second feed for each user, which includes content that is likely to be interesting to them but which they haven’t yet discovered (i.e. followed, liked or engaged with). It provides an easy way for users to explore content from Pages they haven’t yet connected with, and it’s voluntary too. Unlike certain auto-load with sound settings for newsfeed videos (cough, cough).

Where to find the Explore feed

Some may have already noticed the small rocket icon in the Facebook mobile app. The rocket icon can be found on the left-hand-side menu, where Events, Groups, Pages, Moments and more are already found.

How does it choose content and why?

The selection of posts and events you’ll see certainly isn’t random content. Facebook will generate the content based on your personal preferences, i.e. previously liked interests, pages and posts, videos you’ve watched and interacted with in the past and also items your Facebook friends have liked or watched, presuming you have similar tastes. If you’ve got that one bad-taste buddy who watches spot-popping videos or that friend who signs 500 petitions a day, now might be the time to unfollow them!

The idea behind the Explore feed is to increase users’ time on-site or in-app, and to allow Facebook to serve more adverts between content, videos and statuses.

What’s the scope for digital marketers?

For those serving the ads instead of watching them, this is good news. It essentially means more opportunity to serve ads to lookalike audiences who have already registered their interest in viewing content from providers they’ve not subscribed to, and increases exposure for ads. More time spent online or in-app is never a bad thing, either!